The Power of Blogging

I get a looooooot of email from companies requesting me to post about things. Some of which I do especially if it interests me or I feel like it would be of interest to my audience. This is the tale of an oppurtunity I did not post about, but has as a result changed the life of a dear friend of mine.

My good friend Jennifer coaches with me in the evenings. She is a stay at home mom to three young children and has dreams of one day starting her own photography business. So when an opportunity came through my email about a world famous photographer having a scholarship contest to empower three women in a photography business. Complete with camera equipment, mentoring, and business help..... I didn't post about it, but I did tell Jennifer. I forwarded her my email and she grabbed the opportunity presented.

Congratulations Jennifer on being one of the three recipients of the SOAR scholarship and all that it entails. It was no accident that this happened for me to help put you on your path...... It's a God thing, I truly believe.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Can you Spell it out?

The joys of the school spelling bee. Yes, it is that time of year again and all children at the girl's school in 4th through 8th grade have the option of being in the school spelling bee.

Both Regan and Rebecca always participate, and never study....just wing it. Their past experience with doing it this way has been successful so far so I guess it is no-loss formula in their eyes.

The funny thing is that accents can get in the way terribly as was so aptly dmonstrated by this year's contestants. Apparently the rules are vague with how many times the moderator can say the word and then you either understand or not as the case may be...and spell to what you thought you heard. Kind of like the game telephone.

English teacher says "Algorythm" child hears "outter rim" no matter how many times the teacher says the word. The teacher does have a strong south Texas bohemian (czech/german) accent. You just hope for the best. The top five students remaining that basically don't mis hear and spell correctly their words get to move on to the county level.

Both the girls made it through the first round with Rebecca spelling lemon right and Regan with the word guitar. The second round took Rebecca out with the word bureaucracy (she couldn't understand the teacher at all on this one....or knew what it was). Regan moved on to the third round spelling boutique right. Finally Regan went out on Rennaissance but still ended up in 4th place so she moves on to the next round at the county level.

She has decided to study a bit for this level. Wish her luck!

The Fruit by the Foot Race

It has come to be expected that when you spend the night at our house there is bound to be some wacky things happening, and you will leave completely entertained. Rebecca had two friends over and they had a ball with the eating challenge.

What kinds of fun things do the kids at your house do to entrtain themselves and friends?

Food Memories Hickory Farms

When I was a kid I remember every year shopping at the mall for the Christmas season. One of my favorite stops when we made these rare excursions was the Hickory Farms store. There were always such great little taste testing stations. I would stare in wonderment at the wheels of baby swiss (my favorite), and roam through all the choices of gift baskets that you could put together for any holiday celebration.

I thought at the time (just like my girls do now) that there wasn't a much better gift than a huge basket of delicious goodies all in bite size packages.  This year our Christmas celebration started early as we received our very own gift box.

You shoud have seen the girls faces light up when I unpacked this little box of treasures. The spreads and cheese ball I am saving for holiday parties that are coming up, but the meats and cheeses I sliced up right away for us to snack on and enjoy.  There was plenty for us to have an afternoon snack and then perfect for the girl's lunchboxes.

...and before you ask, I did share the strawberries.  I didn't become the candy hog I would have loved to be.

What a  great start to our season. I can't wait to share the rest with our friends at the numerous parties we are attending. Not only am I filled with nostalgic memories, we have happy bellies and smiles on our faces.
I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a Hickory Farms gift basket to facilitate my review

The Ultimate Party Meatballs Recipe

Tonight John Mark and I are co-hosts of a holiday wedding shower for dear friends of ours. It is technically a company party that encompasses all the different people who work for the same firm as John Mark and live in our area. We are a very close knit group and get together outside of the work environment all the time. I have been a little scatterbrained lately so I was excited to be part of the Mom Central blog tour for the recipe of Ultimate Party meatballs. What a perfect holiday appetizer to take as part of my contribution to the shower. I could let these cook in the crockpot while I worked on other appetizers to bring as well.

The ingredients are so very simple which I appreciate as I run around all day like I live in a mad house.

1 bottle Heinz Chili Sauce
1 Can Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1 Package of frozen ready made meatballs

Basically the extent of labor is opening the packages which I can definitely handle. The meatballs go on the bottom then pour on top your other two ingredients. I have my setting at low since I am basically putting these out of my mind for most of the day. I stirred it every few hours.

These are ready for me to take to the wedding shower with a bowl of party toothpicks. Easy to eat and great tasting. I can highly reccomend this recipe for holiday entertaining and the cranberry jelly gives it just the right seasonal flair. Enjoy!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Heinz and Ocean Spray and received the ingredients necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate

St. Nicholas can you do Something about my Car?

Dear St. Nicholaus,

Thank you for your generosity to my girls they are thrilled with the nail polish, fun earrings, and hot cocoa they found in their boot this morning. I wish that I had taken the time to write you also. I hope it doesn't particularly matter that we are not a Catholic family but enjoy the tradition of you all the same due to my german heritage that I want to preserve for my girls.

In my letter to you I have but one wish.....a working vehicle that I can call my own. Since my wreck nearly two months ago, and the repair and subsequent breakdown of my car. I have been utterly frustrated. The second rental car decided to not start this morning just as John Mark left for the airport on a three day work streak in St. Louis. Once again I rely on the good friends in small town to help me out. One good friend helped me by taking Rebecca to and from cheer practice, and then two more friends came out to jump start the rental and take it back to the dealership leaving me another vehicle in it's place.

It is not that I am ungrateful for all the help, it is just hard to rely on others when all you want is your own car back, or to have it replaced so that you can move on. Please consider my one wish for this holiday season is to once again be self sufficient in a vehicle I can call my own. Thank You!

I can't believe I saw Snow today!

While I am so jealous happy that my sister and her family including my aunt and uncle are all having a wonderful time at Walt Disney World. I hope every ride is closed due to unforesseen circumstances. I can't wait to hear all of their adventures when they get back and look forward to the stories of my gorgeous neices and all they experienced.

Since I am not bitter in the slightest, I have to tell you we have been warily anticipating this day. For some reason  the goofy weatherman  insists it it going to snow today. Does he not realize I live in South Texas? I live here expressly because I hate cold and snow in all of it's forms. I never dream of white Christmases when I would much rather have beachy palm tree kinds of Christmases complete in sundresses and sandals.

Snow?
Here?

But yeah, it is freaky weather today and in typical South Texas fashion everyone is going beserk. Schools are trying to decide whether to close and we are waiting to hear if they will cancel my husband's company Christmas Party that we are to attend this evening.

I head to school around lunchtime, and my car is being bombarded with snowflakes. It is just nuts to me. When I got to school the kids were all running around joyfully trying to catch flakes on their tongues, and wishing it would actually stick to the ground, but no such luck.

Our snowflurry was gone by 1:00 pm, and it was clear skies from then on.
There have been rare occasions of snow this far south, but never this early. I wonder what that says about global warming?

For the Love of Advent Calendars

Two traditions are strong in my house as soon as December makes an appearance. The first is that both of my children require Advent Calendars.

The kind that count down the days until Christmas and behind every door is a piece of chocolate. These have long been a family tradition and pretty hard to come buy when you live in a small town. My mom and my sister usually find these wonderful little calendars at World Market and make sure to buy for several friends children as well.

The second tradition is St. Nicholas Day. Now we are not Catholic if that is your first thought, but instead I attribute it to my german roots. My mother grew up with tradtional St. Nicholas as a child in southern Germany. In turn, I was raised to write my letter to St Nicholas on December 5th of every year and place it in my boot (or actually we would use my dad's boots because they were much bigger) at the front door.

The next morning our letters would be gone and our boots had small goodies in them. My mom always included the traditional fruit and nuts in ours along with a small gift.

The girls wrote their letters and Regan's was wonderful making sure to ask after St. Nicholas and he was before asking for her three items. She even encouraged him to take a vaction after the holiday season and to keep those reindeer coats shiny with hair supplements. Rebecca's letter got straight to the point detailing items she deemed appropriate to aske for Christmas.

I should add that with all of Regan's gushing she asked for uber expensive items that she will not get i.e. a laptop, a cell phone, and a vacation to Disney. Rebecca's note in all of it's starkness covered a dvd, board games, and clothes. She is ever the practical one.

I can't wait to put them in their boots at the door and see what happens.

What holiday traditions start off your Christms season?

Eye-yi-yi

Regan has for years failed every school eye exam. Every year no matter what I get a phone call from the school nurse saying how badly her glasses are working and she needs a new prescription. Every year I call the Opthamologist completely frustrated that her lenses seem to be so completely off. After seeing the proffessional they always change her glasses prescription with just a tweak and tell me that her eyes look pretty good. Why is it that the school and the doctor are complete polar opposites on the eye frontier.

This year it was no different, and I basically was dismissive to the school nurse. I really didn't want to take Regan for the proffessional opinion when I knew it was going to be virtually no change yet again....but a dent in my pocket nonetheless.

But I caved....

And vented my frustration to the doctor that either Regan is testing badly with the school eye exam or we really were way off with her numbers. She just looked at me a funny, and said "Does the school know that she is pretty blind in her right eye due to her prematurity and retinopathy at birth?"

No
and I didn't know that either.....

Why is it something that has basically benn with her since birth and in all of her medical charts probably hidden in some obscure medical jargon had never been explained to me....or written out to the school in her file. It is crazy to me that at fourteen years old I learn something so completely new about my child, and one that really can't be fixed.

She overcompensates with her left eye which really works beautifully, and her right eye is a disaster. Boy does that clear up a lot with her ability to focus.

Well now I know and so does the school, and once again her prescription chnaged just slightly, but the opthmologist assured me the glasses she was wearing were just fine, but she would write me a prescription for me to get a current back up pair if I wished.

Designer Tree or Well Loved Sanctuary

My tree every year in no way has a color palette that matches my decor. If I have matching ornaments at all it is because so many of them come in two's for Regan and Rebecca to inherit one day for their own trees. I love my christmas tree, and every ornament I unwrap brings a smile to my face. Whether it is my ornament made for me by my own great grandmother, or the ornaments I bought as a new bride, and the ones I inherited from my mother's tree. I love each story that they have to tell, and I whisper to each one like they were my children that they are my favorite.

Our typical routine is to take everything out of the attic the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We break out the Christmas CD's and the hot cocoa. We get to work with each doing their own traditional jobs. John Mark decorates outside wrapping a tree and lining the sidewalk with lights. I put together the tree (all fake for us). I have to add lights, ribbon, and fun gold curly Q's to it before the first ornament goes up.

Regan unwraps each ornament out of the tissue and we talk about the history of each one. What country they came from, what special meaning or person they came from. Rebecca adds the hooks and I place it in a perfectly planned spot on the tree. When we step back with the finished tree it is pure joy and always makes us feel the Christmas spirit has started.